Sunday, June 30, 2013

Weekend 29th and 30th Jun Todays News

30thHappy birthday and many happy returns Rex Lee and Diana Lam. Born on the same day, across the years. Your day is notable, including 1894, London's Tower Bridge, a combined bascule and suspension bridge over the River Thames, opened. In 1908, A massive explosion occurred near the Podkamennaya Tunguska River in what is now Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russia, knocking over 80 million trees over 2,150 square kilometres (830 sq mi). In 1934, Adolf Hitler violently purged members of the Sturmabteilung, its leader Ernst Röhm, and other political rivals on the Night of the Long Knives, executing at least 85 people. In 1963, A car bomb intended for Mafia boss Salvatore Greco killed seven police and military officers near Palermo. In 1971, The Soviet Soyuz 11 spacecraft suffered an uncontrolled decompression during preparations for reentry, killing cosmonauts Vladislav Volkov, Georgiy Dobrovolskiy and Viktor Patsayev—the only human deaths to occur in space. Grim reading, but how dare anyone raise their hand to you? The bridge is a fitting monument. Cheers.29thHappy birthday and many happy returns John Markham, Quan Hong Kiet andMichelle Le. Born on the same day, across the years. On your day in 1613, The original Globe Theatre in London burned to the ground after a cannon employed for special effects misfired during a performance of William Shakespeare's Henry VIII and ignited the theatre's roof. In 1776, The first privateer battle of the American Revolutionary War was fought at the Battle of Turtle Gut Inlet near Cape May, New Jersey. In 1967, Actress Jayne Mansfield, her boyfriend Sam Brody, and their driver were killed in a car accident outside of New Orleans, while her children Miklós, Zoltán, and Mariska Hargitay escaped with only minor injuries. In 1974, Isabel Perón was sworn in as the first female President of Argentina, replacing her ill husband Juan Perón, who died two days later. In 2007, Apple Inc. released the first generation iPhone, which revolutionized the smartphone industry and made the company one of the world's most valuable publicly traded companies. This says much about you. You battle against tremendous odds, and sometimes all your brilliance is let down by special effects. You know that two enormous air bags won't make a car much safer. And when you ask Siri about Peron it comes back with Madonna singing "Don't Cry for me Argentina." Ride the bumps and enjoy life!
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About a third of former Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s Cabinet resigned after Kevin Rudd was recycled as Prime Minister by Caucus Wednesday night.

Not one of Gillard’s handbag hit squad was among them.

So much for the sisterhood’s solidarity. Emily’s Listers seem to lack the courage of their conviction or they have such piddling principles that they can rationalise the worth to the Labor Party is of far greater value than their commitment to the gender war they prosecuted when they were part of Gillard’s Amazonian Guard.

Shrill, shrieking but not there when needed.

Rudd has not failed to disappoint since his return, telling a press conference that the Coalition’s plans to stop the boats could trigger a conflict with Indonesia.

He even evoked Konfrontasi – the conflict between Australia and Indonesia in the ‘60s in which Australian troops were deployed, and some were killed, during the struggle with the Sukarno regime.

He later tried to back pedal and Attorney General Mark Dreyfus was sent out yesterday to hose Rudd’s dangerous remarks down but it was too late.

The Seven network’s Andrew O’Keefe played the role of Labor stooge during an interview with shadow foreign minister Julie Bishop.

It’s well worth watching – O’Keefe digs himself in deeper and Bishop smiles serenely as he makes an absolute idiot of himself.

Though there were various polls bouncing around throughout Saturday, it is apparent that the electorate is still enjoying Rudd’s celebrity candidate status and hasn’t given a thought as to what he actually is saying.

They will, soon, and they will find that the “new” Rudd is the “old” Rudd.

Meanwhile, Opposition leader Tony Abbott was cheered to the rafters by a crowd of around 2000 after being introduced by former Prime Minister John Howard.

Howard’s presence alone reminded the faithful what the nation is realising it has missed for six years.

In summarising the events of the week, Abbott said: “I make this solemn prediction. At some stage under Kevin Rudd people will get nostalgic even for Julia Gillard. And you can say what you like about Julia Gillard but I also say this: the first female Prime Minister of our country did not deserve to be dragged down by internal treachery. She did not.

“She did not. It is the job of the Australian people to change the Prime Ministership.

“It is not the job of the faceless men.

“There is a rent in our polity, there is a rent in our polity, because twice in just three years an incumbent Prime Minister has been dragged down by faceless men inside the Labor Party.

“Not only have we seen the Prime Minister dragged down, but we have seen one third of the Cabinet resign. This is a political crisis. It is a political crisis.”

Bet you don’t see those words printed in your newspaper on paper Sunday.

As for the treacherous sob sisters, Finance Minister Penny Wong is still recovering from Liberal Senator Michaela Cash’s attack.

Wong didn’t take thirty pieces of silver, her price was the job of Government Leader in the Senate.

But she begged the dealmakers to ensure that her fingerprints would not be found on the dagger which finished Gillard.

Piers Akerman – Saturday,June 29,2013 (11:17pm)

Piers Akerman – Saturday,June 29,2013 (4:47pm)

EVERY wine bottle carries a fancy back label these days with extravagant descriptions of the contents running from the florid to the faintly obscene.
Winemaking legend and Barossa Baron, Peter Lehmann, who died Friday warrants a back label the size of the Encyclopaedia Britannica flowing with poetry, sung to music.
South Australia has lost a legend, the nation has lost a champion, grape growers and winemakers have lost a hero, his wife, Margaret, has lost a soul-mate and thousands of others who may have only known Peter through his label have lost a provider of great wines at reasonable prices.
I have lost a great mate. Though Peter was in every way irreligious, I reckon the winemaking in Heaven is going to get a shakeup.
Many, many readers of The Advertiser may recall The Adelaide Vines project – our attempt in the late ‘80s to help homeowners usefully get rid of their surplus backyard grapes which would otherwise feed the birds or just rot and possibly spread vine diseases.
The ‘Tiser floated the idea and the response was overwhelming. Nobody had any idea how many grapes were grown in Adelaide but there were tonnes.
Everyone wanted to donate theirs to the Vines and that’s when I first met the Lehmanns.
Someone would have to try and make wine from these mongrel varieties – and we’re talking about grapes that had never been seen in Australia before, bunches grown from cuttings smuggled in from someone’s original homeland in granny’s knickers.
That someone was Peter, who put his hand up and took giant skips up to his Tanunda winery across his weighbridge and to the crushers – watched by thousands of readers who had followed the caravan in their cars.
Nearly a year later, the first vintage was released and sold. Ok, it wasn’t knock-your-socks off, but it was quaffable and it raised more than $50,000 which was donated to charity. A charity that looked after people with drinking problems.
The time, the effort, the skill, the hospitality that Peter and Margaret put in was typical and it was nothing to them.
Peter had already made his name for the stand he took during the vintages of 1978 and 1979 when his employer, Saltram’s (then controlled by the multinational Dalgetty’s) told its long-term growers that it had enough grapes and would not take their fruit.
The decision could have meant disaster for the dozens of families of small grape growers. With no money behind him, he offered to crush their fruit and pay them for the grapes from the proceeds of the sale of the young bulk wine.
The name of the company he set up for this purpose was Masterson, named for the Damon Runyon character Sky Masterson, who wagered his soul in a craps game with the tambourine-shaking Salvation Army missionary Miss Sarah Brown. Mr Lehmann’s labels have included the gamblers’ card, the Queen of Clubs.
Peter lost a kidney a year after our Adelaide Vines project and in recent years was undergoing twice-weekly dialysis.
He knew he held life’s bad cards in his hand but he played them to the end.
An end that deserved to be perfumed with rich Barossa earth and a deep dark shiraz.

Miranda Devine – Saturday,June 29,2013 (11:19pm)

KEVIN Rudd was late for his first press conference on Wednesday night. He arrived in Parliament House’s packed Blue Room half an hour after the appointed time of 10.15pm.

You might think: so what, he’s a busy man. He’s just achieved vindication. Give the guy a break.

But the atmosphere in that room of seasoned political journalists in Canberra was utterly unforgiving. As the clock ticked on, exasperated hacks groaned: “He hasn’t changed one bit”.

Far from the media giving him a honeymoon, there was no detectable tolerance for Rudd’s foibles that night. Rather there was a near universal allergic reaction.

When Rudd started saying “rock around the country” and “cooking with gas” the snickering was audible. Aspects of his personality that seemed quirky and interesting six years ago now are just flaky and annoying.

Sure enough, for all his talk of being a new man, the old Rudd is back, exactly the same.

Watching him in his first Question Time on Thursday was like 2010 all over again. The same tics, the hair flick, the idiosyncratic slang, the numbered points, the fussy arrangement of papers, the grandiosity.

The question is: will the nation remember the old KRudd and switch off him as fast as it did three years ago, before he was summarily removed by his colleagues?

I looked back at a speech I made in early 2009, when Rudd was riding high, having been named by Newspoll as the most popular prime minister in history, with a 73 per cent satisfaction rating. To me, and I suspect the rest of the media at that time, he was still an enigma.

He was adored by the public as a cherubic John Howard clone, but his popularity was inversely proportional to how well you knew him.

The clue to Kevin Rudd, I found, is to think of him as the hologram in Red Dwarf, a wholly constructed personality. He is KRuddMP, his twitter avatar (1.2 million followers, cheesy grin, flashing V for victory from the back bench, mobile phone in hand.)

Kevin Rudd the person is invisible. You can’t get a handle on him like you would a human. You must rely on a forensic profile of his actions, following a trail of policy blunders and fractured relationships to construct a picture of the real Rudd. The problem for Rudd is that, before he was ousted in 2010, that picture was starting to come into focus, and his poll approval began to plunge.

KRuddMP’s inflated self importance had not translated to any achievements. Instead there was the Copenhagen climate summit and the “ratf#@r” Chinese, the delay of the ETS, the Oceanic Viking standoff which re-started the people smuggler trade, the pink batts debacle, the school halls waste, the 2020 summit which came to nothing. And the small stories which leaked out of unreasonable private behaviour: reducing an air hostess to tears, making important people like Defence boss Angus Houston wait for hours outside his office, sidelining his colleagues. Tony Abbott had the measure of him earlier than most, which is why Rudd’s colleagues ousted him, before the public wisened up.

But, for his colleagues this week, an ominous sign that Rudd hasn’t changed came in his second press conference. It began as a sort of mea culpa, but it ended in defiance.

“If I have learnt one thing from my previous period as prime minister (it) is the absolute importance of proper orderly consultation with cabinet colleagues ...

“We can all say it’s too busy, there’s a global financial crisis going on, sorry colleagues, don’t have time, we’ve got to save the banks from falling. These all seem pretty good justifications at the time ... “

(Translation: I was singlehandedly saving the world in 2008-9-10 but my needy colleagues wanted me to hold their hands. Well, I will, but it’s their weakness, not mine.)

Warning! Warning, Will Robinson!

Rudd’s lack of self awareness is another enduring characteristic. He says he offers the politics of hope and optimism, while Abbott is mired in the “old politics of negativity.”

Yet he spent the last week in attacks on Abbott so negative they make Gillard’s misogyny speech look mild: a vote for Abbot would send the nation into recession and spark military conflict with Indonesia. That is the politics of optimism?

Rudd’s pitch taps into something voters in western Sydney mentioned two weeks ago when they gave him an ecstatic welcome. They see his time in office as a link to the Howard era, as if Howard and Rudd were a tag team of economic prosperity. Although Rudd was the architect of the policies that bedeviled Gillard, they regard him as a cleanskin.

So on Thursday in Question Time and again on Friday, Rudd referred to John Howard no fewer than seven times. “It is rare a person is given a second opportunity to lead one of the major political parties of Australia. Mr Howard was extended that opportunity. I’ve been extended that opportunity.”

But the opposition is not going to let their hero be co-opted so easily.

A sign that Howard will have a major role in their campaign plans was his appearance at a Liberal rally yesterday at the Melbourne showground. Howard waxed lyrical about Abbott: “I’m proud to call him my friend.”

Abbott then took to the stage: “When John Howard passed the microphone to me I thought, yes, the baton change has been effected.”

So much has happened in politics in this last historic week that it will take time to properly digest. But the best question was asked by a young journalist on Wednesday night after the announcement that Rudd had won the caucus vote 57 to 45.

“Did the party make the wrong decision three years ago?”

No one from Labor will answer that question, but the answer is obvious in the beaming face of Rudd, PM 2.0.

Much of the public will see the restoration of Rudd as righting a wrong they never came to terms with. It is a deserved humiliation for the so-called faceless men of the union movement who tried to control our parliament. But it has also rendered Julia Gillard’s prime ministership illegitimate.

The destruction of the most formidable female politician of her generation is one of the greatest tragedies of this whole farce.

Of course, Gillard didn’t help herself by embracing Anne Summers’ neolithic victim feminism, but she didn’t deserve to be used up and spat out by her party. Far from making it easier for the women that come after her, as she claimed in her farewell press conference, Labor has poisoned that well.

The nation is now allergic to the idea of female exceptionalism. Whether it also catches the Blue Room’s allergy to Rudd before election day is to be seen.

Miranda Devine – Saturday,June 29,2013 (11:18pm)

THE chorus of condemnation of the referees who sent off four players after a massive brawl during the second State of Origin game last week is a sign of something rotten in rugby league.

The sin-bin ruling has been slammed as “ridiculous” , “embarrassing” and a mistake by everyone from Wally Lewis to Bill Harrigan. There have even been calls for the referees to be sacked.

It’s easy to be wise after the fact, watching that all-in punch-up between the Blues and the Maroons on slow motion replay. But try figuring out who threw the first punches when you’re a referee in the thick of it, having to make the call in real time in the middle of an iconic game. The referees were simply enforcing the NRL’s long overdue no-biff rule which followed Paul Gallen’s disgusting three punches on Nate Myles in Origin I.

The punch-up at a subsequent U-20s match shows you how corrosive Gallen’s behaviour was.

As parents, we try to teach our children to respect the referee’s decision. It’s a lesson for life, to abide by the rules.

It teaches them to become useful citizens, and subsume their individual interests for the good of the team.

That’s one of the reasons we encourage our children to play team sports, and here are the elders of rugby league thumbing their noses at the rules.

It’s become a badge of honour for some to badmouth referees. You see it at State of Origin and you see it on suburban football grounds.

I’ve seen sensible looking parents yelling abuse at a teenage referee at an U-12 match. Who would want to become a referee?

Yes, young men love going the biff and viewers love watching it. The dirty secret is that it has become an integral part of the marketing of the game.

But it only encourages the escalating violence that afflicts our streets every Friday and Saturday night. As a mother, it’s bad enough to watch your sons being battered legitimately in scrums and tackles. If we wanted them to take a fist to the head we’d have enrolled them in boxing lessons.

Referees are crucial to safeguard player safety. If they are not respected, honoured and protected then the game is finished.

The NRL cannot back down. Next time the players decide to brawl, sin-bin the lot of them.

Tim Blair – Saturday,June 29,2013 (4:37pm)

A huge show on Network Ten at 10am and 4pm.
Guests: Opposition Leader Tony Abbott, Peter Costello and Michael Costa on the rise of Kevin Rudd.
Plus Rudd warns of one war - but ends one started by Julia Gillard.
The twitter feed.The place the videos appear.

Mr Howard delivered a scathing assessment of the resurrected prime
minister, accusing him of being the architect of Labor’s asylum seeker
policy which he dubbed “the single biggest policy failure of this
government."…
Mr Howard hit back on Saturday, accusing the prime minister of being a
“policy chameleon” on border protection and jeopardising the
relationship he had spent years building with our regional neighbour.

“What the current prime minister of Australia has done to that
relationship over the last two days is absolutely disgraceful,” he said.

Rudd’s problem is that he needs to find replacements for the ministers
who were in charge of the contentious and complicated NBN, Gonski
changes and carbon tax after Steve Conroy, Peter Garrett and Greg Combet
all walked out on him. The leak suggests he’s also moving on
Immigration Minister Brendan O’Connor, who won’t be chuffed to read
this.
And note, a few days after Rudd’s win and the leaking is starting…
UPDATE
Rudd goes for symbolism:

KEVIN Rudd will elevate a record number of women into cabinet, proving he is determined to ensure the “men in blue ties” do not dominate the political landscape.
Victorians Jacinta Collins and Catherine King and Tasmanian Julie Collins are all getting promotions to cabinet.
Overall, he will increase the number of women in the full ministry from nine to 11.

Former Sydney Morning Herald editor Paul McGeough, a Pilgerite, has lost all sense of proportion, equating the US with tyranny, discussion with violence, reporting with a conspiracy, and a news report with a pistol:

Take the treatment of The Guardian’s Glenn
Greenwald, the journalist behind sensational leaks on Washington’s
classified domestic and international phone and internet surveillance.
Greenwald figured they’d come after him. And then he got the email from
the New York Daily News and a call from The New York Times — clearly,
someone had been going through the trashcan of his life....
New York papers just had to talk to him about a company in which
Greenwald had sold out to his partners all of nine years ago. Among
other things, it distributed adult videos. Get that down, now. Key words
— ‘’adult videos’’; connotations — deviant, kinky, not one of us.
Then there was an unpaid tax liability from the winding up of
Greenwald’s legal practice, still the subject of negotiations between
his lawyers and the IRS. Connotations — tax evasion; perhaps fraud. Oh,
and more than a decade back Greenwald defaulted on a student loan — now
covered by a payment plan agreement. Connotation — irresponsible, rides
on coattails of law-abiding citizens…
Proud and all as Americans are of the first amendment, at times like this it can be reduced to a decorative nuisance.
In Turkey, you see Erdogan and his bovver boys coming — they come
through the front door. But when it comes to shooting the messenger in
the US, they use the backdoor and a silencer … and they find a grubby
colleague of the targeted journalist to pull the trigger. Saddest of all
is how there’s always a media volunteer to act as would-be character
and career assassin.

After two years and an estimated 100,000 deaths, the civil war in Syria has spilled on to the streets of Sydney. Auburn, Lakemba and Bankstown are the new battle lines…
Mustapha al-Majzoub, a Sydney sheikh killed in Syria last year, ... was
one of about 200 Australians to travel to the war zone in the past two
years. The Australian Federal Police believe a significant proportion of
these mostly Lebanese dual citizens are fighting with the Syrian
resistance, about half of whom are in al-Qaeda aligned Al-Nusra Front,
which was put on a Federal Police terrorist blacklist in March…
Seventeen incidents of sectarian violence in Melbourne and Sydney have
been reported in the media but Fairfax Media has uncovered details of
many more.
The conflicts in Sydney have ranged from bitter verbal exchanges on a
Lakemba street to the firebombing, bashing and extortion of the owner of
a Bankstown juice bar.
According to court documents, a group of men from al-Risalah, led by
owner Wisam Haddad, told Juicylicious owner Ali Issawi they would hunt
down any supporters of Assad, ‘’crush them down with our feet’’ and
‘’slaughter your necks, all of you’’…
Another Shiite Muslim, 29-year-old Ali Ibrahim, ... made comments in
support of Assad on Facebook. Fifteen minutes later, he answered the
front door of his Punchbowl home and was shot twice in the legs…
Shops have been firebombed and their owners coerced into selling cheaply
since a list of 22 Shiite businesses to boycott circulated online last
year....
After his $200,000 Bankstown chicken shop was firebombed two days before
it was due to open last year, Rockdale City councillor Michael Nagi
simply gave up and quietly withdrew from the area.

Winding slowly through mosh pits of handshakes, baby huggings and
delirious cheers of congratulations, the Labor leader kept repeating a
single phrase: “It’s good to be back.” After an invitation to the local
Presbyterian church barbecue, the Prime Minister ordered a sausage
sandwich with onion and barbecue sauce, before asking the price.
“It’s $50 for you,” the church volunteer replied.
Mr Rudd then produced a $20 note from his breast pocket and said “keep the change.”

GREG Combet will quit politics at the next election in the latest high profile departure from the Rudd Government.
Anointed by Bob Hawke as a future Labor leader, the [former] Climate Change Minister made the announcement late this afternoon…
“My reasons are personal and are not attributable to the change in the
leadership of the Labor Party this week, although this has provided a
catalyst for my decision.”

Also quitting at the election:

Julia Gillard
Stephen Smith, Defence Minister
Nicola Roxon, former Attorney General
Craig Emerson, former Trade Minister
Martin Ferguson, former Resources Minister
Robert McClelland, former Attorney General
Chris Evans, former Government Leader in the Senate
Peter Garrett, former School Education Minister.

All were in the Ministry just two years ago, but are bailing.
Smell of death.
But this is also the price of carbon. Add two more resignations this
past week - Tony Windsor and Rob Oakeshott - and the retirement of
Greens leader Bob Brown, then only one of the six who negotiated the
carbon tax just three years ago is left in politics:

Global warming isn’t a threat to the planet. It is a threat to politicians who fall for the scare.

Liberal Senator Michaelia Cash cuts loose. Over the top, rage Leftists.
But you might think she nailed the hides of the sanctimonious to the
wall from 2:12:

The sisterhood stabbing one of their own in the back… You’ve always got
to like that, don’t you? When the sisterhood stab one of their own in
the back…
I wonder how loud former prime minister Gillard screamed when her own
sisterhood knifed her in the back and took her out - Minister Wong is
now sitting reaping the spoils of the victory, drinking from the chalice
of blood.

UPDATE
Readers cheer.

Rubyred:

Bravo! Senator Cash. That is what they should have copped every time the
sisterhood let loose on Tony Abbott or any other Conservative
politician. Call them out for what they are!

Jenstar:

Thank you michaelia. I understand your anger. You spoke for me.

Expose:

It was interesting reading the youtube comments underneath the video. It
would seem that the left has quickly forgotten about the misogyny
rhetoric.

emily:

Fan. bloody. tastic. Up there with the ‘famous’ misogyny rant. Hope it goes viral. Go girl

But Wong admits herself that she is the sexist - for a long time voting for Gillard (and not Rudd) on the basis of gender:

I voted for Julia on the last occasion because I still believed that she
was the person who should be Prime Minister and out of personal
loyalty, and as the first female Prime Minister, I thought it was important to continue to support her.

Could Wong please explain the difference between good sexism and bad sexism?

Rudd has had no intention of resuming the Labor leadership in this term of Parliament. Why
would he? As a phenomenal egotist, he looks at politics through the
prism of vanity. The worst thing that could happen to Rudd in 2013 is to
run against Tony Abbott and lose. This would destroy his self-image and
self-belief. It would also blow his status as a Labor Party martyr….
History tells us Rudd often backs away from a fight…. Given the
preconditions Rudd has placed on returning to the leadership, it is
impossible to take his bid seriously. He has said he will not challenge
for the job, he wants a caucus coronation. That is, he expects the
Gillard camp to surrender unconditionally and recognise him as a
unifying, consensus leader.
This is why Rudd has set the comeback bar so high, knowing his enemies can never jump it…
In effect, Rudd is wrecking, not running. He embodies a destructive
brand of selfishness, drawing people close to him but then abusing their
goodwill. Just as he left Simon Crean stranded in the aborted
leadership coup in March. Rudd is encouraging his caucus supporters to
work for a goal which can never be realised. MPs like Joel Fitzgibbon
and Eddie Husic are not smart enough to know how badly they are being
used. Scores of journalists have also gone along for the ride, writing
their 82nd Labor leadership story – in substance, a story about nothing.

The return of Kevin Rudd is the final hammer blow in the destruction of
Labor’s moral code. The person who sabotaged its 2010 campaign is now
its leader for the 2013 election.
The message for young activists on the so-called progressive side of
politics is clear: the way ahead is through dishonesty, treachery and
cowardice. If they sabotage an organisation, ultimately, they will be
rewarded with its leadership. They too, like Mr Rudd, can be the ruler
of the ruins.

ABC News Breakfast interviews three young people to see if Kevin Rudd’s
appeal to young voters connects with them (Friday, 28 June 2013).
Who are the three young people they consult?

Dominic Ofner, President NSW Young Labor
Penny Parker, Women’s Officer, NSW Young Labor
John Birrell, NSW Young Labor Member

UPDATE
The ABC does it again. Reader Alan RM Jones:

On the 7pm bulletin last night, Rebecca Barrett reports that Julia
Gillard never sought to make gender an issue (overlooking her previous form)
then states: “her appearance was on the menu for discussions at Liberal
Party fundraisers” with the following graphic on the screen making it
appear the menu was on the table when that has been clearly refuted:

UPDATE
Reader Peter of Bellevue Hill notes another conservative-free zone on the ABC:

AB, with Cassidy hosting three fellow leftists in Tingle, Seccombe and Kenny on Insiders this Sunday, the count from 5 May to 29 June now stands at 30 appearances from the left, three from conservatives and three from the centre.

Australia prides itself on being a classless society. It is certainly
the most egalitarian I have worked in. The belief that everyone should
be given a “fair go” runs deep, but at the same time there exists a very
powerful sense of mateship, of male values and a male-inscribed
culture. And it is the tension between these two characteristics of
Australian life that is the backdrop to the abrupt end this week to
Julia Gillard’s prime ministership.
She is the best parliamentary performer of her generation, male or
female, something the world appreciated when her “misogyny speech” in
the House of Representatives in October 2012 went viral. She went into
the chamber with just four bullet points, stood up and made an impact
that resounded around the world…
It was a speech that also hit a nerve in Australia. She spoke to every
woman who had been slighted by men in a business meeting, or experienced
sexism in the workplace. And it went wider. Every other group that had
ever felt oppressed in Australia knew that she was lifting a cloud in
their society…
Gillard has faced serial abuse as a woman on a scale I believe is
unprecedented in modern politics… That negative, corrosive, anti-woman
rhetoric that Gillard endured for so long has damaged Australian
politics, and public opinion…
Tony Abbott encouraged negativity. So he was happy to stand in front of
groups holding banners that labelled Gillard a “bitch” and a “witch”.
His presence legitimised such abuse.
Then there was the recent fund-raiser for another senior opposition
figure, Mal Brough, where a menu produced for the restaurant owner said
it served “Julia Gillard Kentucky Fried Quail – small breasts, huge
thighs and a big red box”. The next day she was asked live on air by
radio host Howard Sattler if her partner Tim was gay… It took me back
to Britain in the 1980s, where a largely successful battle was fought to
end the use of racist or sexist abuse in public discourse. Australia is
30 years behind…
... as Australia’s first woman prime minister, leading a minority
government, against a negative opposition, she became a lightning rod
for deep-rooted misogynist forces in society. As a politician she was
more than a match for the men around her…
The irony is that, though she could have done so, Gillard never sought
to gain advancement in her career by playing on being a woman. She ended
up reaping all the disadvantages and none of the benefits.

A few of the things McTernan got factually wrong in this article for a
British paper only too willing to believe Australia is a nation of
women-hating Neanderthals:

Abbott was not “happy” to stand in front of those signs.
He did not see them at the time, and denounced them instantly when he
learned they’d been there. The organisers of the rally had tried to
remove one of them, held up by a lone crank. Not one Liberal said the
“ditch the witch” sign was legitimate, and it’s appeared at not one
rally since that’s been addressed by a Liberal MP.
Gillard in fact gained advantage in her political career by being a
founding member of Emily’s List, which promoted her and other women on
the grounds of their gender.
Gillard sought advantage from her gender by posing for a gushing 13-page spread in Women’s Weekly in 2010 and, disastrously, another spread this month - organised by McTernan- showing her knitting.
Gillard sought advantage from her gender by giving the misogyny speech
which falsely claimed Abbott was a woman-hater and which McTernan then
promoted, using even contacts in Britain, to galvanise the women’s vote.
Gillard sought advantage from her gender by launching the Women for Gillard movement, set up with McTernan’s help.
Gillard faced different abuse through being a woman but no worse abuse than hurled at male politicians. Labor endorsed a Rock Against Howard CD
calling John Howard a “filthy slut” and urging listeners to “kick him
‘til he’s dead”. Only yesterday, Tony Abbott was slimed by Labor as a
jock so stupid he could take us to war with Indonesia.

I don’t think McTernan understands the country he tried to influence.
The Australia he describes of macho men doing down a great woman out of
sheer sexist spite seems more informed by the Bazza McKenzie movies of
40 years ago than any shoe-leather tour of this country I have lived in
all my life - a country that produced the widely-loved Joy Baluch, mayor of blue-collar Port Augusta for nearly 30 years until her death in May.
John, I warned you privately many times you were misreading this
country. You were selling us short. You were insulting us by thinking we
would fall for your politics of division. I urged you to appeal instead
to our desire for unity.
You failed. Don’t now piss on us in revenge.
(Thanks to reader ed.)

Labor is now blaming the very tribunals it stacked for letting in too many boat people:

Up to 90 per cent of people who arrive by boat are considered genuine
refugees, but [Foreign Affairs Minister Bob] Carr said his “impression”
was that now, as arrivals spiked, most were economic migrants…
“There have been boats where 100 per cent of them have been people who
are fleeing countries where they’re the majority ethnic and religious
group,” he said…

Senator’s Carr’s Foreign Affairs Department would provide courts and
tribunals with large folders of “objective information” about the source
countries for refugee cases..., which would mean tribunal members and
judges would “have less discretion on whether [refugees are claiming]
persecution”.
”We need to be more hard-edged about this,” he said.

The two members of the Rudd Government’s Refugee Review Tribunal say
they operate under a “culture of fear”, with their jobs under threat if
they reject too many claims.
They believe two members have already lost their jobs for being too
tough, and more could follow when the next round of appointments (and
dumpings) are announced next month…
Neither member dared to let me identify them, but both confirmed what
former RRT member Peter Katsambanis told me this month - that RRT
members have been told not to reject too many appeals against
Immigration Department decisions to send asylum seekers home.
The members say five RRT colleagues reapplying for their jobs were
recently grilled by the selection panel about their low rate of
accepting claims of asylum seekers (known as the “set aside” rate).
One was allegedly told: “We expect to see an improvement.”
Both members, like Katsambanis, say the four-man panel which decides on
RRT appointments includes a refugee activist with a conflict of
interest.
John Gibson is also president of the Refugee Council of Australia and
works as a lawyer for asylum seekers who are turned down by the RRT.

The 25 RRT members who were reappointed last week have, over the past
three years, rejected appeals by asylum seekers in 62 per cent of cases.
In contrast, the 18 RRT members who were sacked rejected 78 per cent of
appeals. What’s more, the toughest four RRT members were all sacked.
Here are some of the people who will replace them. There’s Charlie
Powles, a Refugee and Immigration Law Centre solicitor, and Anthony
Krohn, a Melbourne barrister who has worked for many asylum seekers and
the Refugee Advice and Casework Service.
Add to them the director of the Brisbane Catholic Archdiocese’s Centre
for Multicultural Pastoral Care; a solicitor for the refugee advocacy
group Southern Communities Advocacy Legal Education Service; and a
solicitor for Sydney’s Immigration Advice and Rights Centre. Notice a
pattern?

UPDATE
Reader Samantha Whybrow, a former visa officer at our High Commission in Sri Lanka, writes:

I hope you can spare time to read of my frustrating experiences as a
visa officer at the Australian High Commission in Colombo, Sri Lanka....
I should say from the beginning that I am not a disgruntled ex-employee
who was sacked. I made a decision to resign from the department due to
a difference in ethics on the issues I describe below.
In February 2012 the Regional Director for DIAC in South Asia .... told
me “it does not matter if even 90% of humanitarian claims turn out to
be false because the numbers are so small."…

At the time of his statement I had just spent at least 30 minutes in a
meeting with him detailing the strong concerns I held with regard to the
integrity of the humanitarian visa programme.
These concerns arose from interviews I had conducted with spouses/family
members of humanitarian visa recipients that strongly indicated a visa
had been granted on the basis of false information given to the
department.
I had previously presented my concerns to diplomatic staff at the High
Commission, to then Deputy Secretary (Jackie Wilson) on her visit to Sri
Lanka around November 2011, as well as to then Minister Chris Bowen
(whom I met ... in February 2012).
In my interviews with family members of people granted humanitarian
visas (who were then applying for visas themselves) I asked why their
family member had gone to Australia.
In a large number of cases I was provided with responses such as, “the
gem business was not good”, “I don’t know”, “business was not good”,
“our children are in Australia”, “Australia is giving visas for Sri
Lankans”.
When I compared these statements with the statements the humanitarian
visa recipient had made to officials in Australia I found extraordinary
contradictions that lead me to strongly believe the (humanitarian) claim
had been fabricated.
In one case a woman informed the department in her claim that she had
been beaten in front of her husband, yet her husband stated no such
events ever took place and they just didn’t want to live in Sri Lanka
anymore so when his wife got a tourist visa to see their grandchild
their daughter told her to apply for a visa to stay.
In another extraordinary case a woman claimed she had been thrown in
jail for some time and had to escape, yet her family told me no one in
the family had ever been bothered by the police or security forces at
all and certainly had never been in jail.
One man told the department he had been a member of a political party
and beaten because of this, however his wife (who was also his cousin
and thus knew him from childhood) informed me he had never belonged to
any such party and had never had troubles with the government.
In a concerning number of cases the wives of humanitarian visa
recipients informed me they had no idea where their husband was or what
he was doing in the preceding three years coinciding with the escalation
in conflict.
These wives provided very limited information regarding their husbands’
whereabouts and activities during that time, leading me to question
whether they were the spouse at all and creating great concern amongst
staff that they were concealing illegal activities.
There were many more such instances.
Over a period of two and a half years I continued to report these
instances to senior (immigration) staff at the High Commission. I
continued to get frustrated that no one in higher authority gave me
direction in how to investigate the matter further or what to do about
it. I was told to keep a list although no one ever asked to look at my
list.
I was informed by senior staff in the High Commission that I shouldn’t
get so worried and that the police had to deal with this sort of
frustration all of the time in the course of their work…
In the mean-time, while I was coming across a large number of suspect
claims, I was also continuing to refuse any application for asylum that
came from Sri Lankans still living in Sri Lanka—having been informed
that it was not politically expedient to be granting visas to people
still living in their home country.
[The] comment that it wouldn’t matter if 90% of humanitarian claims
were false (because the numbers were so small) was made in February
2012. Over the next few months I believe almost as many or more Sri
Lankans arrived in Australia to claim asylum than in the previous three
years combined despite an overall improvement in the country situation.
I believe that situation was entirely foreseeable given the
understanding amongst the applicants I spoke to that Australia had
‘visas for Sri Lankans’ and that the department was not interested in
investigating claims that appeared—on the basis of new and relevant
information—to be false.
I also believe it is likely that this type of scenario is not isolated to Sri Lanka.

MAN-MADE climate change is likely to have played a role in the “angry” summer Australians endured this year, researchers say…
Study co-author David Karoly said the chance of Melbourne, Perth and
Adelaide eventually experiencing 50 degree Celsius days “are quite high”
due to ongoing climate change.

As illustrated, ... there wasn’t anything unusual about the land
surface temperature for the 2013 season. The other thing that really
stands out is the fact that, based on the linear trends, summertime
surface temperatures haven’t warmed since 1979. The linear trends are
basically flat. On other hand, the models show that summertime land
surface temperatures should have warmed at a rate of about 0.22 to 0.236
deg C per decade. Oops, they missed yet again.

Tisdale adds:

That’s not to say that Australia land surface temperatures haven’t
warmed since 1979. The monthly data shows that Australia land surface
temperatures warmed at a rate of about 0.07 deg C per decade. However,
the models show that if greenhouse gases were responsible for the
warming, Australia land surface temperature anomalies should have warmed
at a rate that’s more than 3 times faster. The modelers still overshot
the mark by a sizeable amount.

Let’s check reviews for Kevin Rudd’s second day in office.
First, Rudd’s performance:

I’m very concerned about whether, if Mr Abbott were to become prime
minister and continues that rhetoric and that posture and actually tries
to translate it into reality, I really wonder whether he’s trying to
risk some sort of conflict with Indonesia… What I’m talking about is
diplomatic conflict, but I’m always wary about where diplomatic
conflicts go. Konfrontasi with Indonesia evolved over a set of words and
turned into something else. Let’s just, let’s just call it for what it
is…
What happens on Day 1 when Field Marshal Tony puts out the order to the
captain of the naval frigate X to turn back a bunch of boats? And you
have got a naval frigate from the Indonesian Navy on the other side of
the equation?

Indonesia has dismissed Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s suggestion that the
Coalition’s asylum seeker policy could cause “conflict"… Mr Faizasyah
says it is not appropriate to comment on Mr Rudd’s suggestion because it
relates to internal Australian political matters.

KEVIN Rudd’s warning of conflict with Indonesia is a reckless
mistake that betrays the sheer depth of Labor’s frustration over its
failure to stop the boats.
Rudd broke every rule in the book for dealing with Indonesia. His
remarks misread Jakarta, risk the prospects for co-operation and are
unwarranted on the basis of Tony Abbott’s turning the boats policy.

Rudd’s vast experience in international affairs makes his astonishing
gaffe yesterday on Indonesia almost incomprehensible. Rudd ... yesterday
he made one of the most irresponsible interventions any Australian
prime minister has ever made....
Rudd ... canvassed military conflict between Australia and Indonesia.
This is an almost insane thing for an Australian leader to do…
Rudd’s strange and dangerous remarks on Konfrontasi are likely to set
all manner of hares running in Indonesia. They are extremely dangerous.

It’s been an amazing three years personally for me, having gone to the
royal wedding and met the Queen in Buckingham Palace, gone to
Washington, meet the Obamas, to China, all that sort of stuff. And also
just getting to live in both the premises, the Lodge and Kirribilli,
its been an amazing privilege and an amazing experience.

Abbott makes a tiny wry joke about Turnbull inventing the Internet at
[yesterday’s] Liberal meeting and Fairfax goes into a meltdown along
with some IT industry morons. Liberal ministers laughed, Abbott smiled
at the joke he made.
Is the Left really that shallow and humourless? Are they that petty and
hateful as to make a mountain out of something so innocuous? Are they so
dumb that they took Abbott’s joke seriously? Get a grip.
The Fairfax report:

Mr Abbott’s comments got a laugh from his colleagues, but geeks everywhere have gotten all worked up about it, just like when they got worked up about Mr Abbott’s comments that he was “no Bill Gates” or a “tech head”.
“Yes, Turnbull was one of the first Australian businesspeople to
appreciate the commercial potential of the internet, and made a killing
out of it. But he did not virtually invent anything,” wrote blog
larvatusprodeo.net.
“Tony Abbott should avoid further embarrassment by not opening his mouth
ever again on anything related to telecommunications. He’s had years to
get it right, and he still has no clue.""Let me clarify something for
you, Mr Abbott: You might have been joking, but the joke wasn’t funny.
Malcolm Turnbull didn’t invent squat in terms of the internet in
Australia,” wrote tech blog Delimiter.

===
===Dr John Mendoza, the former Chief Executive of the Mental Health Council and of the Australian Sports Drug Agency, told Adelaide radio that in his opinion Kevin Rudd was a sociopath. Heavy language, not repeated in other media although they reported some of his diagnosis.

John Mendoza, who resigned as Rudd’s mental health adviser, says the former PM is “not fit for office” and he will “leave the country” if Rudd returns to The Lodge. “There was constantly work being done on ridiculous timetables,” he says. “There’s a litany of discarded policy and wasted effort during the Rudd years. The public was never told the truth.”

Mendoza told ABC radio yesterday he quit from the Mental Health Council because Mr Rudd’s leadership was dysfunctional, erratic and chaotic.

Kevin Rudd’s one-time senior adviser on mental health says the former prime minister was removed from the top job for his “own wellbeing”.

“The Australian public is now starting to understand that he (Mr Rudd) wasn’t knifed in the back, in fact he was removed for his own wellbeing and the Government of the country had to function,” Professor Mendoza said.

Extraordinary stuff. And it might just explain a lot.
===
===
4 her
===
===
===The Milwaukee art museum at sunset. This city was a pleasant surprise during my travels with Yahoo! as the designated weather photographer. This space age, strange looking architectural edifice actually has moving parts I was told. I would have liked to have stayed longer to see it move its' wings. — at Milwaukee Art Museum.
===Last night's wet weather grind. If you've never done agility ladder drills in the rain then we dare you to give it a go, just don't let the potential slipping stop you, it's all part of the challenge!#team9lives#9livesparkour
===
===I'm not asking for help. I'm just venting. Thursday I realized I was having a gout attack. Usually, I just keep to bed for a day and it goes. But I've now been bed ridden for two days and it looks like hanging around. It is my left knee, which is unusual. I know how to navigate around my right one. But I sat in a chair at 2:30 am and couldn't get out of it until 9:30. Then I am assaulted on the net by a former student who wants to be helpful but who isn't. I know far more about this than he does. And a former friend starts making really bizarre attacks .. It is lucky I don't own a gun. The pain is so intense! I'd do something I would regret .. But one thing I don't regret is embracing God. Prayer support would be good.
===Twilight over Manhattan.

Prayer for the Lonely and Brokenhearted

O Lord my God,whose love restores the brokenhearted of this world,pour out your love,we beseech you,upon those who feel lonely, abandoned, or unloved.Thou knowest what they want, O my God. Thou knowest the name of that need which lies beneath their speechless heart. Thou knowest that, because they are made in Thine image, Strengthen their hope to meet the days ahead,give them the courage to form life-giving friendships,and bless them with the joy of your eternal peace.Amen.

===

Hi everyone! Here's the MichelleMalkin.com newsletter for June 28th. Enjoy!

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About Me

I'm author of History in a Year by the Conservative Voice aka History of the World in a Year by the Conservative Voice.

I'm the Conservative Voice.

I'm looking to make contact with those who might use my skill.

I have an m-audio mobile pre amp fed by the audiotechnica 2041sp condensor mic pack. Prior to 15/4/06, I'd used a Shure sm-58 that required a nuclear blast to register a sound or the internal mic of my aged imac, which has a penchance to recording my breathing. I also used a Griffin itrip, until the community convinced me it was not hiding my talent as well as the other mics.

I am a Writer and an occasional Math Teacher (Sir, what's the occasion?). I like to sing, having no instrumental talent (cannot even clap in time, and yes, I'm aware singing badly IS obnoxious).

I have performed the finale to Les Miserables before an audience of 500. I have also sung before a similar audience (students, parents) renditions of 'I Will' (Beatles), 'Mr Cairo' (Jon Vangelis) and 'I am Australian' (Seekers). Now I seek another profession because the audience hates me ..